video editing solution for windows
 

Hey all

Just starting doing video editing but my new laptop alas is windows based and not a mac so imovie is not the answer for me sadly. My school has tons of Mac g4's and g5's for use during class but I'd like to use my laptop for at least some of my photo editing. The software solutions I've found for cutting, splicing, adding sound and effects to digital video are:

Windows Vista Movie Maker - this program is slightly updated from windows xp version but it's still pretty basic as far as I can tell.

Sony Vegas 8 - alot of reviews say it's only slightly better then movie maker

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 - seems like the best out of the programs I've found but reviews still aren't to great

It seems like Ilife 08 with mac is the thing to have for seriose video editing and if I knew I was gonna do digital video for my college thesis before I bought my laptop I would have bought a mac. One of the reasons I didn't buy a new Mac is because they're pretty expensive and I've always used a PC. Is there some way to emulate Ilife so that it will work under windows or does anyone have any video editing software suggestions?

I've already asked my photo department about this and everyones advice is to buy a mac which really isn't much of a solution for me. So any imput would be great.

-Ray

Have you worked on Nero 7 for Windows XP before? Nero 7.7.5 is for Vista.
Photography major is expensive; I was going to attend to SBB (University of Santa Barbara) in 1970, and I had to give up because of the $$$ requirements.

If your laptop has a Core cpu then you could try running MacOS X on it. There has been an image with a modified MacOS X so you could run it on a 'regular' pc, tough Apple did it's best to get it off the internet.
Jahshaka is an open source video editting software, but it's very hard to learn in my humble opinion. Link: http://www.jahshaka.org/
Slightly *kuch* more expensive is Adobe Premier.

I wouldn't screw around with the Dell (I believe it is what you have) in switching OS with one and only laptop you have at the beginning of school year. Too much risk to get behind on the first couple of week.

Ulead Videostudio and Adobe Premiere are two alternatives...

oh yes, I read something about an Acer portable that got it running, more or less, though the problem was always the same: DRIVERS!